| UFC 20: Battle for the Gold | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 The poster for UFC 20: Battle for the Gold | ||||
| Promotion | Ultimate Fighting Championship | |||
| Date | May 7, 1999 | |||
| Venue | Boutwell Auditorium | |||
| City | Birmingham, Alabama | |||
| Event chronology | ||||
| ||||
UFC 20: Battle for the Gold was a mixed martial arts event held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on May 7, 1999 at the Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama. The event was seen live on pay per view in the United States, and later released on home video.
UFC 20 was the final event of what the UFC called "The Road to the Heavyweight Title", a tournament of sorts spanning four events, held to determine the Heavyweight Champion after Randy Couture vacated the title (due to contract disputes with the UFC). Bas Rutten defeated Kevin Randleman to become the new Heavyweight Champion in a controversial split decision.
Referees for the event were Mario Yamasaki (first time for UFC pay-per-view) and John McCarthy.
| Main Card | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight class | Method | Round | Time | Notes | |||
| Heavyweight | Bas Rutten | def. | Kevin Randleman | Decision (split) | 21:00 | [a] | |
| Heavyweight | Pedro Rizzo | def. | Tra Telligman | KO (punch) | 4:30 | ||
| Heavyweight | Pete Williams | def. | Travis Fulton | Submission (armlock) | 6:28 | ||
| Middleweight | Wanderlei Silva | def. | Tony Petarra | KO (knee) | 2:53 | ||
| Lightweight | Marcelo Mello | def. | Dave Roberts | TKO (punches) | 1:23 | ||
| Lightweight | LaVerne Clark | def. | Fabiano Iha | TKO (doctor stoppage) | 1:33 | ||
| Preliminary Card | |||||||
| Heavyweight | Ron Waterman | def. | Chris Condo | TKO (punches) | 0:28 | ||
The following fighters were honored in the October 2011 book titled UFC Encyclopedia . [1]
